:: XII :: Confessions
Lei stared incredulously at the sheaf of papers Jun had presented to him.
"How the hell did you get all this?!" he exclaimed, his voice plainly showing his amazement.
"You're not going to believe this," she began, slumping down onto her sofa, "but they gave it to me."
"They gave it to you?" he echoed, his voice rising an octave. "How? Why?"
Jun told him all that had happened a few nights before. "And there's something else I have to tell you. They also told me that they were holding Michelle Chang's mother."
Lei looked up at her sharply.
"Yes," Jun nodded in confirmation. "And they're still holding her."
"What about the God of Fighting?"
"The thing I saw wasn't the God of Fighting. I don't know what it was, Lei. That's why they're still holding Mrs. Chang. Because they don't have a clue as to how they should release this God of Fighting."
"But you know what this means, Jun," Lei stated gravely. "It implies that there really is a God of Fighting. Or at least that the Mishima believes there's one."
"Wang sounded sure there was one. So if there is one, we're going to have to stop them."
"I'll have to talk to Michelle about this. This is getting far too crazy for my rational brain to take in." He turned back to the papers in his hand. "There's one thing here that interests me." He pulled out a document. "This shows details of the various narcotics that have been developed by the Mishima laboratories this year alone. Look at what we have here – cocaine, heroin, ecstasy…" Lei's face darkened. "This is enough to lock Bruce away for a lifetime."
"Sorry, Lei, but this piece of paper doesn't positively tie Bruce Irvin to anything."
"Don't worry," Lei assured her grimly. "I'll make sure it does."
Jun quietly observed the dark look on her partner's face.
"Lei, are you going to tell me why you're so bent on bringing down Bruce Irvin?"
"I'd rather not discuss it right now, Jun," he replied dryly.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me, Lei," Jun insisted. "Ever since we've been here, you've been doing nothing to investigate Bruce except badmouth him. It's as though you're aiming for revenge, not justice."
"And I have good reason," Lei muttered, turning away. "I've been waiting too long for a bit of payback."
"What reason?"
Lei turned again, his eyes suddenly glazed as he looked at the floor. After a while he spoke, his voice subdued.
"It was five years ago, and I was sent to investigate some American who was dealing drugs with the Hong Kong Triads back home."
"Bruce Irvin, right?"
"Right." Lei nodded pensively. "I was only a rookie-cop back then. It was my first big assignment. I was just going into it blindly, I was young, impressionable and full of confidence in my own strength. I'd just been assigned a new partner – a girl called Wu Meiling. She was the best in the Narcotics Department. She was hot stuff – broke every case she worked on, but at the same time every inch a lady.
"Well, it was pretty cut and dry really. I liked her and she liked me, so we kind of got together over time. It was the perfect partnership, in both senses. We were a great team. I thought we were going to convict Bruce without little trouble at all. Little did I know."
He sighed, sat up straighter and shook his head slowly as if the memories displeased him. Jun spoke up gently.
"Carry on."
"Well," Lei continued slowly, "it was the day of the stake-out, and she and I were at the head of the operation. We thought it was going to be a pretty straightforward set of arrests. But it seemed our friend Bruce had friends in high places, because he was ready for us. I still thought I could handle the situation. Foolishly, I tired to take on Bruce myself. Ling came along too – she knew I was too headstrong to think straight.
"She tried to intervene, to calm everything down when things were becoming too heated between me and Bruce. I guess Bruce saw how I felt about her because he took her hostage." Lei paused and dropped his head into his hands again. "God, Jun, I knew I should've sent for back-up, but out of my rashness and blind fury, I thought I could play the damned hero and save her myself."
He stopped, shut his mouth, his face contorted in shame and regret.
"And you blew it, right?" Jun added softly.
"It was a clean shot, straight through the head," he told her quietly. "I used to console myself with the fact that she wouldn't've felt anything before she went, but…" He lifted his head, and his eyes were distant. "…I sometimes think about what she was shouting to me before she went… Get away, Lei, don't come near! But I was crazy, out of control… anger does that to you."
"You should tell Michelle all this," Jun told him unexpectedly.
"Why?" he looked puzzled.
"Because then she'll understand why it is you always give her a hard time."
Lei glanced at her. "What are you saying?"
"Well," Jun began airily, "I finally understand why it is that you're such a male chauvinist. I guess after your partner died you were angry with yourself for letting her get killed, and you thought it might happen again someday. So when you found out your new partner was a woman – me – you decided to piss me off so much I'd never like you."
"Luckily," Lei started with a grin, "I couldn't even think of having a relationship with you in a million years, Jun. Eco-warriors just aren't my type."
Jun brushed aside the insult.
"But you do like Michelle," she said in a wheedling voice. "So maybe if you talk things over with her, she'll understand how you feel. You can't pretend you have misogynistic feelings towards women forever just because you got hurt once."
Lei scowled at her.
"Why do you have to be so perceptive?"
"Call it female intuition," she replied slyly. He scowled at her again.
"Go on, tell me I'm right," Jun coaxed him. "I want to hear it from your own mouth."
"I'll be damned if I do," Lei replied, but there was a playful smile on his face. "If I did, you wouldn't let me hear the end of it."
"You know what?" Jun quipped with a theatrical frown on her face. "We're sounding like a married couple already."
Lei passed her a horrified look.
"That was totally uncalled for," he said pointedly. Then his face began to darken again. "But I tell you, Jun, if bit's the last thing I do, I swear I'm gonna get to Bruce. I owe that much to Ling, and to myself as well. The memory of what I did haunts me every day. Sometimes I think I'm going to go crazy with it. I have to flood my mind with other things just to keep me sane."
"I can understand that," Jun spoke up quietly. She moved to the window and stared out, her arms folded at her chest. "You've got to concentrate on something totally different to keep your mind off things."
Lei blinked at her.
"Is something wrong? You sound upset about something."
"It's nothing," Jun turned from the window and passed a watery smile. "I'm just wondering where all this is going to lead."
"What's certain is there's no going back now."
"No," Jun agreed. There was no going back now. Lee had been right. Once you got deep enough into the Mishima's world, there was no way to get out of it again.
-oOo-
Lee burst into Kazuya's office that evening, for the first time in years the anger overt on his face. Kazuya stared up at him with mild surprise at his unwarranted entrance.
"What is the meaning of this, Lee? Surely you know not to disturb me at this late hour."
"There is something important we have to discuss, dear brother," Lee returned, venom in his voice. "And this time I will not be so agreeable!"
Kazuya's face clouded.
"Have you forgotten your place, Lee?" he questioned, his eyes narrowed. "You swore your allegiance to me when I took over the conglomerate, your loyalty alone is known to be above question! It is natural that I expect you to behave as such."
"Right now, I don't particularly give a damn," he retorted hotly. "Right now I'm not talking to you as a business associate. I'm talking to you as my brother."
"We aren't brothers," Kazuya replied calmly. "There is no way in this world that we could be called brothers. We can never understand each other. What you have to say does not interest me." He turned back to his papers, as though having already forgotten the matter. Lee spoke up without even considering leaving.
"Not even when what I have to say concerns Jun Kazama?"
Kazuya stopped slowly and looked up again.
"What about her?"
"You told me to watch her, so I watched her closely. I want to know what you said to her yesterday."
"What I told her is none of your business," Kazuya replied with dangerous softness.
"It is my business," Lee mouthed back, losing his temper completely and knowing it. "I want to know."
There was a deathly silence on Kazuya's face as he took in his foster-brother for a moment or two. Then he rose slowly, from his seat.
"Did you touch her?" he spoke with the same cold calmness in his voice. "I told you not to touch her."
"Why not?" Lee demanded fiercely.
"Because I want her," Kazuya continued unflinchingly. "No; I need her. For too long now Lee, I have had to share things with you. Now, it shall be different."
"Why did you force her to stay away from me?"
"I didn't," Kazuya retorted softly. "She came to me of her own free will."
"Then how come she still cares about me?"
Kazuya began to laugh.
"Why is it that you are so concerned about her yourself, Lee? Do you care about her too?"
Lee said nothing. He did not like to admit it – it was almost as though it was a weakness to him. Kazuya saw his thoughts and laughed again.
"At last we have met on common-ground, Lee. How ironic. That the one thing we share in common should be Miss Jun Kazama. Yet I somehow think that this time I shall win this round Lee, not you."
"She knows about the Devil," Lee stated quietly. "You told her, didn't you. You shouldn't have let her know. It's too dangerous for her."
"I never told her," Kazuya replied, equally softly. "They chose her. She was meant to know, she was meant to play this game."
Lee gritted his teeth, suddenly realizing the power of Kazuya's claim. If it was true then Jun was in great danger – greater danger than he had previously thought. He had to help her, but he had no idea how. Even he only knew little about Kazuya's secret advisor, and its relationship to Kazuya. If Jun knew what she knew, then what Kazuya said must be the truth.
"She's not meant for you, Lee," Kazuya began again, seeing the realization on Lee's face. "Leave her alone. And I won't be needing you to keep an eye on her anymore. My bodyguards shall do that instead." He sat down at his desk again, a small smile playing on his face. "By the way, Lee, our father made his grand entrance yesterday. So you will be facing him in the tournament after all. Make sure you defeat him please. I don't want to have to soil my hands with his blood."
Lee watched on as Kazuya picked up his pen casually and began to write again. He stood for a moment, desperate to find some comeback to Kazuya's cold words. But he couldn't. He could only think of Jun. Somewhere at the back of his mind he now found it easier to accept that he was in-love with her. But that was only because, deep down, he also knew that he would never stand a chance with her again. With this realization fresh inside him, Lee knew what he had to do. On his honor he must turn and walk away; and so he did.
-oOo-
Next: Heihachi tells Jun the true nature of the Devil, and Nina and Anna slug it out! Heh heh...